It’s just called “The Speech.” Delivered in a Southern California TV studio in October 1964 — Ronald Reagan had agreed to deliver it on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s campaign for the presidency — the half-hour national broadcast transformed Reagan from an aging GE pitchman into the voice and soul of movement conservatism.

Reagan’s creed of Cold War hawkishness and small-government conservatism was to define our times in the way FDR’s New Deal liberalism had 30 years before. In retrospect, we can see that Goldwater’s landslide defeat a few weeks after Reagan’s speech was only tactical; strategically, in the struggle for the mind of the nation, conservatism was poised for victory.

What’s missing from 2012 is any sense (on either side) that we’re engaged in a real debate about the future. Evoking FDR, Reagan talked about 1964 as a “rendezvous with destiny.” Mitt Romney and Barack Obama just aren’t willing to or apparently capable of speaking in such terms.

And yet there is an issue facing us that’s every bit as momentous as the question of the role of the state was for Reagan and Goldwater. Just don’t expect President Obama or Gov. Romney to touch it.

It’s fiscal responsibility — the urgent need for Americans to get their house in order before our over-leveraged entitlement commitments and debts crush us, leading to a reckoning that will have immense political, economic and cultural implications.

After his first month in office, Barack Obama spoke passionately about the need to reduce the deficit.

“Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration or the next generation. We are paying the price for these deficits right now,” he said.

“We risk sinking into another crisis down the road. As our interest payments rise, our obligations come due, confidence in our economy erodes and our children and our grandchildren are unable to pursue their dreams because they’re saddled with our debts. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay, and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.”

But this president’s first term in office has seen the most reckless spending spree in U.S. history, with the national debt exploding $5 trillion in less than four years. I spent most of the Bush era savaging the 43rd president for his radical record on spending, but Obama Democrats are making Dubya look more responsible by the minute — and that’s not an easy thing to do.

But Mitt Romney has also failed to offer a real plan to balance the budget, save Social Security or salvage Medicare. That’s because you would have to be a blind partisan (or Romney staff member) to expect Mitt Romney to act like Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater. And until he or another leader steps forward to give a new Speech and offer real leadership, our rendezvous with destiny is more likely to be a fiscal train wreck.

A guest columnist for POLITICO, Joe Scarborough hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001.